


Generational Divide: A Meta on the Foretellers and the future of Kingdom Hearts

by The_Violet_Howler



Series: Kingdom Hearts III Meta [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Analysis, Essays, Gen, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, Meta, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 12:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20153818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Violet_Howler/pseuds/The_Violet_Howler
Summary: When you think about it, Nomura is actually doing something really interesting with the way he's setting up the post-Xehanort Saga with the introduction of the Foretellers.





	Generational Divide: A Meta on the Foretellers and the future of Kingdom Hearts

It’s taken me a while to articulate, but there’s a particular genius in the way the Foretellers and the Master of Masters are being set up to take Xehanort’s place as the main threat of the next saga. Because we aren’t just suddenly being introduced to a slew of new characters that we don’t have a reason to care about beyond “they’re probably going to be the next villains”. These are established characters who we have had years to speculate and make headcanons for and get attached to before we finally learn the role they’re meant to play in the overall saga.

When you get right down to it, Xehanort’s status as a Keyblade Wielder isn’t really that important to the overall story. His plans are wrapped up in the Keyblade’s history and lore, yes. But if you removed his ability to wield the Keyblade from the story, nothing would really change. Being a Keyblade Wielder is an interesting facet of his backstory, but it isn’t a core part of who he is as a character. But the Fortellers are another story.

Because the Foretellers are not just any old Keyblade Wielders. Including the Master of Masters, these seven are the _first _Keyblade Wielders in the history of the KH universe. They are the originals. The forebearers of the heroes we love in the present day. Being Keyblade Wielders is central to their identities in a way that wasn’t the case with Xehanort. And in comparing the Foretellers with the current generation of Key Bearers, there is a clear generational divide in their views on the balance between Light and Darkness.

Throughout the last fifteen years of Kingdom Hearts games, we have been hearing the main characters expressing the view that Darkness isn’t inherently evil. We have heard time and again the importance of balance between Light and Darkness, how one cannot exist without the other. Riku’s entire character arc from Chain of Memories onwards was _built_ around this idea. But despite all this, the main antagonists of the Dark Seeker saga rely exclusively on the powers of Darkness, reinforcing the Darkness=Evil stereotype even as characters preach otherwise.

The logical inverse of the Dark Is Not Evil trope is that Light is not inherently good. But despite the implications, the farthest the games have ever gone with this was in Birth by Sleep, when Eraqus attempted to murder Ven to prevent Xehanort from getting his hands on the X – Blade. But beyond that, the potential for a Light-based antagonist has gone largely unexplored.

Until now.

Because while the present-day Keyblade Wielders still believe that Darkness is not inherently evil, the X-era characters are another story entirely. Throughout the mobile game and Back Cover, we see the Foretellers, other story-important Keyblade Wielders like Ephemer and Skuld, and various generic Keyblade Wielder NPCs speak of Darkness in negative tones, as something that needs to be held at bay and destroyed. Nowhere do any of them speak of balance between Light and Darkness, or the idea that both are intertwined and cannot exist without each other. And with Luxu summoning the Foretellers to the present day, it’s pretty easy to guess how they will react to Keyblade Wielders like Riku that have learned to use both Light and Darkness in equal measure.

And that’s what’s going to make the Lost Masters Saga (as fandom has unofficially dubbed it) so much more painful emotionally than the Xehanort saga. Because despite how fun Xehanort’s various incarnations can be to watch, they were still clear, capital b Bad Guys who the audience was supposed to pity at best and hate at worst. But the Foretellers are not clear-cut Bad Guys. These are characters that we have spent the last few years getting attached to. We have seen their friendships and their quirks and foibles and their genuine desire to protect the world. We never saw that as evil the way we did with Xehanort.

And now we reach the end of Kingdom Hearts III and find out that they’re going to be the next villains. These four flawed but well-meaning souls who just want to protect the world from evil are being set up to clash with our heroes because they have two incompatibly different views on Light and Darkness. When the Guardians of Light clashed with the Seekers of Darkness, all fans wanted was for the heroes to beat Xehanort into the ground until he never got back up again. But now every time the Foretellers start fighting with Sora and Riku and Kairi and the others, we’re going to be sobbing our eyes out because we can see that everyone wants the worlds to be safe and we just want everyone to stop fighting and make up so that they can be friends.

Tetsuya Nomura did something genius by releasing the mobile game and Back Cover _before_ Kingdom Hearts III instead of after. By introducing the Foretellers and the Master of Masters before they properly take center stage in the next saga, he allowed us to grow attached to these characters to see them not as the next villains – with the possible exception of the Master of Masters – but as flawed and human, people who fight with each other over whose methods are best but all ultimately want to do their best to try and save the world. And that’s what’s going to make the next saga hurt so much more.

TL;DR: Compared to the straight forward Light vs. Dark conflict against Xehanort, establishing the Foretellers and the Master of Masters as the antagonists of the next saga sets up the story as a generational conflict between the rigidly dogmatic views of the old guard and the more open-minded and fluid views of the new generation. And by releasing Unchained X/Union X and Back Cover before KH3 was even out, Nomura has made sure that fans will be invested in characters on both sides of the conflict.


End file.
